Harish Jharia

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31 October 2011

Scary Halloween outfitsHalloween or Hallowe’en* is a contraction of "All Hallows' Evening" and is an annual festival observed around the world. Hallowveen is a festival honoring the dead saints and observed on October 31, the night preceding All Hallows Day. It is like the ‘day of the dead’ celebrations. This has ancient origins connected with the seasonal changes and coinciding the harvest time.

Carved Pumpkins on HalloweenSpanning the line between fall and winter that is ‘plenty’ and ‘paucity’ or ‘life’ and ‘death’, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is believed that Halloween had originated out of the ancient Celtic** festival of ‘Samhain’, when people used to light bonfires and wear fearsome costumes in order to ward off roaming ghosts and spirits.

Pumpkins in high demand on Halloween

Pope Gregory III, in the eighth century, designated November 1 as an occasion to honor all saints and martyrs and incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The previous evening was known as All Hallows’ Eve and was later named as the present day ‘Halloween’. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Synonyms:*Hallow= bless, consecrate, sanctify (Hindi- पूजना, पवित्र करना, पाक करना)**Celtic = an Indo-European group of languages that includes Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton and has Brythonic and Goidelic subgroups. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------npad

29 October 2011

My trip to the USA in 2011 has been quite special and exceptional as we witnessed snowfall in the month of October that is quite unusual and surely one of the unforgettable events. Here are some pictures and a video shot at the beginning of the snowfall:

Click on the photo to see enlarged view

Click on the photo to see enlarged view

Click on the photo to see enlarged view

Click on the photo to see enlarged view

Click to play the video

All the pictures and video are shot on Nokia N8 12MPix mobile phone, at 1:00pm on 29 October 2011

28 October 2011

Hariom Babji: Played by Narendra Jha, he is the central character of a spiritual head that is considered as Bhagwan (God) and worshiped by the people as one.

Atharv: Played by Kunal Verma, he is is the son of Hariom Babji and the most eligible bachelor in the current times. He is the fiancé of the young leading lady Aastha.

Aastha: She is an extremely beautiful girl; one of the main characters played by Shrenu Parekh and proposed to be married with Atharv.

Madhav: He is a potter by profession; the character played Sanjay Swaraj is also the father of Aastha and husband of Lajo.

Lajo: A powerful character played by Samta Sagar is the wife of Madhav and mother of Aastha. She has delivered her dialogues in chaste central Indian Bundeli dialect.

Trishna: She is the eldest daughter-in-law of Hariom Babji, a negative character played by Shubhangi Atre Poorey

Theme and Story:

Hariom Bapji, played by Narendra Jha, is a religious preacher and a spiritual healer. He commands great respect in that area and is worshiped by the people like Bhagwan (God). People display his picture in their places of worship at their residences along with other deities and gods and perform regular pooja.

Astha, a beautiful young girl in her early twenties, is the daughter of a poor potter of the village. She is a selfless devotee of Hariom Babji who in turn recognizes her devotion and offers a marriage proposal between his son Atharv and her. He went all the way to Astha’s home and submitted the marriage proposal to her father Madhav.

The potter Madhav and his wife Lajo felt embarrassed on finding a celebrity like Hariom Babji at their door step. They could not believe their ears when Hariom Babjii initiated a marriage negotiation with them. Eventually, the marriage is fixed and preparations for the same are in progress.

As usually happens in all the TV serials, three negative characters have initiated their activities. They are- Tishna, played by Shivangi Atrey, the second son of Hariom Babji and a childhood friend of Astha.

Review:

Rajan Shahi has selected a good theme, story and star cast. He launched the serial with lot of fanfare and the initial episodes really induced interest among the TV viewers. Hawan has an interesting theme of 'rags to riches' romantic journey of a beautiful simple girl born in a poor family of a village potter. The episode moves ahead with definite progression of emotional events and interesting incidents. The episodes involved the viewers with the story line and they started identifying themselves with the characters of the serial.

Narendra Jha has played the character of Hariom Babji quite perfectly. He has portrayed the character so effectively that at some places it looks as if his expressions have influenced the character of Madhav, played by Sanjay Swaraj. Sanjay Swaraj should make it sure that Madhav’s expressions should look different from that of Hariom Babji.

Samata Sagar is playing the character of Lajo with exemplary expertise. Her humble expression and the down to earth simple body language are rarely found on TV screen. She delivers her dialogues in chaste central Indian Bundeli dialect with natural ease and perfect accent.

Rajan Shahi has broken the ongoing dictate of women domination on Hindi TV programs and portrayed many male characters on the screen that was earlier crowded with women of all ages clad in multicolored outfits and wearing thick layers of loud makeup. Rajan deserves accolades for bringing back the natural look of Indian life and society displayed on the TV screen.

Nevertheless, it appears that Rajan Shahi is now diverting from the main theme of the serial by glorifying the negative character of Trishna played by Shubhangi Atre Poorey. He has also inserted a rogue character, Neeraj, on 26 October 2011, in the attire of an armed forces (ASC) soldier and a childhood friend of Aastha. This person plays prolonged multiple irritating indecent acts and delivers dialogues in uncivilized tone while indulging in forced interaction with Astha.------------------------------------------------------------------------------npad

26 October 2011

I, on behalf of “Discover Life” and on my own behalf, convey our best wishes to the visitors and members of Discover Life site, on the occasion of the festival of lights- ‘Diwali’. We wish all the very best health, wealth and fortune to all of you.

19 October 2011

The 57th quadrennial United States Presidential Election is going to be organized on November 6, 2012. The incumbent, President Barack Obama is going to contest in the elections for his second term as a Democrats’ candidate. The final candidate from the Republicans is yet to be decided out of a dozen plus prospective candidates declared by the Republicans. The 2012 Republican presidential primaries (preliminary stages of selection process) are in progress, in which members of the Republican Party will choose their final nominee / candidate for contesting against the incumbent President Barack Obama in the forthcoming 2012 presidential elections.

One of the following Republican candidates will be selected for fielding against the incumbent US president Obama in the 2012 election. Brief information, about the Republican candidates as collected from various internet sites, is furnished as follows:

Rick Perry: James Richard "Rick" Perry, born on March 4, 1950 is currently the 47th Governor of Texas. A Republican, Perry was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1998 and was elevated to governorship in December 2000, when incumbent governor George W. Bush resigned to become President of the United States.

Mitt Romney: Willard Mitt Romney, born on March 12, 1947 is an American entrepreneur and politician. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.

Michel Bachmann: Michele Marie Bachmann, born on April 6, 1956 is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. She is holding this position since 2007 representing Minnesota's 6th congressional district.

Ron Paul: Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul, born August 20, 1935 is an American medical doctor and author. Paul is currently a U.S. Congressman for the 14th congressional district of Texas, which comprises the area south and southwest of the Greater Houston region, including Galveston.

Jon Huntsman: Jon Meade Huntsman, Jr, born March 26, 1960 is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 16th Governor of Utah. He also served in the administrations for four United States presidents.

Newt Gingrich: Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich, born on June 17, 1943 is an American politician who served as the 58th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He represented Georgia's 6th congressional district as a Republican member from 1979 to 1999.

Herman Cain: Herman Cain, born December 13, 1945 is a business executive, syndicated columnist, and radio host from Georgia. He was the chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza and the chairman of Omaha Branch board 1989–91. He also worked with Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City as deputy chairman (1992–94) and chairman (1995–96). He also worked as a civilian mathematician in ballistics in the United States Navy. He lives in the Atlanta suburbs and serves as an associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church North.

Rick Santorum: Richard John "Rick" Santorum, born May 10, 1958 is a lawyer and former United States Senator representing the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He is a Republican and was the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. He is considered a social as well as a fiscal conservative. He is also known for his stances on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Social Security, intelligent design etc.

Charles ‘Buddy’ Roemer: Charles Elson "Buddy" Roemer III, born October 4, 1943 is a politician who also served as the 52nd Governor of Louisiana from 1988 to 1992. He was elected a Democrat but switched over to the Republican Party on March 11, 1991. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1988.

Gary Johnson: Gary Earl Johnson, born January 1, 1953 is a businessman. He served as the 29th Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, and is known for his low-tax libertarian views and his regular participation in triathlons.

16 October 2011

I always wondered why aircrafts flying in the sky leave white trails behind them in the sky and what exactly is there in the white stripes that keep the trails stay intact for quite some time. I, as a common man, always believed that the aircraft engines might be releasing huge quantity of smoke as exhaust gases that eventually form extended trails behind them. Nevertheless, I was never convinced with this theory because I knew well that smoke cannot form any defined shape; what to think of formation of a pair of straight parallel stripes out of a dark colored thinly composed polluted mixture of gases like smoke.

Qantas Boeing 747-400

I went through many books and internet sites; but, could not find any straightforward answer for this question. There were many difficult scientific terminologies like trails, contrails, chemtrail etc and chemical analytical reports of exhaust gases emanating from the exhaust ports. I could not understand all this explanations that also contained different weather conditions of temperature, humidity and clouds at different altitudes that also went right above my head. I simply thought as to how all these were connected with the white trail we see forming behind the planes in the sky. I, as a common man, wanted a convincing answer in layman’s simple language so that my doubts were cleared.

The layman’s answer that I evolved:

One fine morning in January winters I observed that the exhaust gases emanating from my car were looking like water vapor as we find escaping from the nozzle of tea cattle. It immediately struck in my mind that there was a catalytic converter installed at the exhaust port of my car that was converting Carbon Mono Oxide into water vapor. That means the white exhaust was nothing but water vapor that turned white after condensation in the chilling temperature of about 7 degrees Celsius outdoors. I imagined that if the temperature were at subzero level, the water vapor would have turned into ice particles.

I think that a similar phenomenon might be working with the exhaust gases emanating from the aircrafts flying at high altitudes of 11000 meters and at subzero temperatures of as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius. Aircrafts like Qantas Boeing 747-400 release huge volumes of exhaust gases while flying at high altitudes like 35000 feet and at minus 70 degrees Celsius. The exhaust gases are inclusive of carbon monoxide that is converted into water vapor by catalytic convertors. This water vapor turns into fine particles of ice when exposed to minus 70 degree temperature. Being in solid state the ice particles create a defined formation of straight white stripes of trails behind the aircraft.

Lovely Singh (Salman Khan) is a security guard working with a security agency. He is appointed as a bodyguard for Divya ( Kareena Kapoor) by her father Sartaj Rana (Raj Babbar) as there was a threat to her life from a gangster Ranjan Mhatre (Mahesh Manjareker ). Lovely Singh is an one man army and is considered equivalent to a dozen armed guards. He has high regards for Sartaj Rana as his late father had also worked as bodyguard for Rana. Sartaj Rana had also saved the life of Lovely Singh’s mother when she was pregnant, carrying him. Lovely Singh regarded Rana as his master and addresses him as ‘malik’ (master).

Having been appointed as the bodyguard of Divya, lovely has also been given responsibilities of imparting physical training to her for keeping fit. He is at 24 hour disposal to Divya and also accompanies her in her class rooms in the college where she is studying her MBA. Divya has a friend and companion Maya (Hazel Keech) who lives with her in the same residence and studies in the same class. Divya always feels embarrassed for her bodyguard who follows her everywhere in uniform. She, in association with Maya plans and plays many tricks to get rid of the bodyguard or at least change his outfit from a hardcore security personnel to a normal young man.

In the process of changing the outfit of Lovely Singh, Divya resorts to call him on his mobile, pretending as some imaginary young girl from Divya’s college. She makes many calls to him to say that she likes him as he looks dashing and charming. The repeated calls develop some sort of attraction between Lovely and the imaginary girl. One evening Divya goes to a discotheque and Lovely keeps guarding her there also. The gangster Ranjan Mhatre’s goons invade into the discothèque for killing Divya. Lovely spots the goons when Divya was talking on his mobile pretending as the imaginary girl. Lovely tells her on mobile that Divya Madam’s life is in danger and he is disconnecting the call and rushing to the rescue of Divya madam.

Lovely fights with the dozen-plus goons with expert hooks, punches, kicks, hops jumps, summersaults and pistol shots and finally saves Divya from all this messed up deadly attack. As a result of this incident Divya feels sprouting up a soft corner for her bodyguard Lovely Singh. Divya’s feelings for Lovely undergo a romantic metamorphosis but the servant-master relations between him and her father restricts her from disclosing the story to her father. In a negative twist to the story Divya’s friend Maya comes out in light as the girl who used to call on Lovely’s mobile. Lovely and Maya get married and have a son. In another turn in the story Lovely returns back to Divya after Maya’s death and gets united with her on insistence of his master Sartaj Rana.

Film review:

In spite of having so many twists and turns in the story, the film has come out to be an excellent entertainer. The film keeps the viewers glued to the screen and touches their different feelings many times with excitements, laughters and chocked throats. Salman khan has done a good job in the character of Bodyguard. Karina Kapoor has displayed her finest talents of acting, expressions, body language and dialogue delivery. Debutant comedian Rajat Rawail’s performance was dull and sometimes looked irritating with the indecent dialogues he delivered as Tsunami Singh. The direction, screenplay and editing is excellent.

The snapshot performance of Katrina Kaif was insignificant in the title song and dance sequence because of the dominating presence and persona of Salman Khan. Her piece of dance was also not choreographed effectively.

Salman Khan looked really dashing in this movie. He has obviously reduced extra weight and shaped his body in an ultimate chiseledbuilt. His reflexes have also become quick in this film. He appears to have delivered dialogues in a better voice rather than speaking in his monotonic delivery in base. He has also gone through rigorous practice and rehersals of his dance numbers.

Himesh Rshaiya’s music is another attraction in the film. Nevertheless, the high pitch songs sung as playback for Salman Khan were misfits for the persona of the bodyguard. The songs did not match with the lip movements of Salman Khan.

General Comment:

Music directors should patiently select a suitable pitch for songs when composing music for the hero or for other characters. There is a trend in Bollywood composing songs based on Punjabi pop music and sung by Punjabi pop singers. In spite of being good songs, these compositions do not match with the characters for which they are played as playback songs. Similarly, the songs composed for female item-numbers in UP / Bihar dialects and sung by female singers in husky voices also look a bit indecent.

Theme and story: Lafange Parinde is a story of poor and underprivileged youngsters who live their lives full of struggle and pains. Nevertheless, all the adversities of their lives cannot stop them from dreaming much better lives full of name fame and fortunes.

Nandu, is a bare-knuckled slum fighter who fights a weekly fight on Fridays on a ring controlled by a local goon and gangster Usman Bhai. He is better known as ‘One Shot Nandu’ because of his expertise in knocking down his opponents with a single punch. Nandu is earning his livelihood from the revenue realized out of such fights.

Niel Nitin Mukesh as One Shot Nandu

One day Usman Bhai deputes Nandu on an extra job of driving the jeep carrying a contract killer Anna for an encounter with a rival gang. The encounter ends in the death of Anna and while driving the jeep Nandu injures a slum girl in a hit-n-run accident.

The injured girl is Pinky who workes as an assistant in a roller skating institute and an ambitious dancer. Before the accident, Pinki was getting training from the institute’s skating instructor in figure-skating dance performance. Pinky was aspiring to compete in the TV show ‘India’s got talent’ pairing with her instructor for winning the prize money of Rs 50,00,000/-.

Pinkiy loses her eyesight in the road accident but returns to the skating floor for resuming her practice in spite of being visually handicapped. But, by that time the instructor joins with another contestant and leaves Pinky alone. Eventually, Pinki rebuilds her dancing pair with Nandu. Trains him in figure skating and wins the TV contest and the prize money of 50 lakhs.

Review: In spite of an excellent story, beautiful performance of actors, extraordinary direction and expert editing, the film did not do well on the box-office. I think the first reason might be its title ‘Lafange Parinde’ which contains slang and does not sound good. The title does not give right idea of the film, its theme and the social message it conveys. Some sections of cine goers might have avoided watching it because of its title.

The film is worth seeing because of its story, direction and presentation. It is a must see movie because it conveys strong messages to the underprivileged section of people that the world of name, fame and fortune is made for everyone including the people living in the slums. The tapori dialect spoken by the characters in the film is a real entertainment.

I have noticed a small error in editing that leaves doubts about the timings of the accident met by Pinki and the death of Anna. The frame of death of Anna was shown first; then the frame of knocking down scene of Pinky was shown; and after that the frame that showed Nandu and Anna in the running jeep was shown again.

The film and the story: The T-Series’ Romantic Comedy Blockbuster ‘Ready’ was released on June 2, 2011. There are positive reports about the business done by this movie across the world. The reviews were also quite supportive to the reported success of this film.The film is a remake of a Telugu movie of the same title with a stereotype story that has been repeated in most of the Hindi films. The lead character Prem (played by Salman Khan) is an unemployed young bachelor and a member of a huge joint family the Kapoors. There is another disintegrated family of underworld dons who had their niece Sanjana (played by Asin). Sanjana, an orphan had inherited about ten million rupees after the death of her parents. Her criminal maternal uncles were trying to grab Sanjana and her wealth by marrying their sons to her.

This nuptial combination will create confusion among the viewers of north India and elsewhere in the world as marriages among maternal cousins are not permitted in most of the places. Thereafter the story is all about Prem and Sanjana who made fool of the maternal uncles of Sanjana with the help of Kapoors and finally marrying each other.

The positive points:

Ready is a story of one man show and Salman Khan has done justice to the role of the lead character Prem.

The direction, editing and the screenplay is just average.

The shot composed with Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgan and Chanki Pandey is a masterpiece.

Shots with Salman Khan and Paresh Rawal are excelent.

The negative points:

This is a sort of assorted package of many independent skits rather than a full length feature film.

This is a one man show of Salman Khan without whom it would have been a damp squib.

Asin’s acting is just average and appears to be a repetition of the role played by her in ‘Ghagini’ and nothing new or outstanding.

Mahesh Manjreker's dialogue delivery, pronunciation and expressions are not up to the mark.

There are 25 to 30 characters that have played all-at-a-time actions that the viewer cannot make out what is being done and by whom.

Just do not disbelieve if you go into small naps while watching this movie.

The characters sometimes look like jokers rather than comedians.

You might get irritated with the comedies rather than laughing or smiling.

Story: Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's (1821-1881) short story "White Nights"

The Russian Story Writer:It is quite interesting to note that the story of ‘Saawariya’ is based on a short story ‘White Nights’ written by the 1880s Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky who was punished with prolonged imprisonment for alleged subversion against the czars. He is considered as one of the greatest Russian writers recognized across the world.

Sonam Kapoor as Sakina

Theme: It is a bit complicated romantic story of a homeless young promising singer ‘Raj‘ who comes wandering to an imaginary city for fulfilling his dreams of becoming a rock star. The young man landed in the heart of the city where the main brothel of the city, in addition to hotels, restaurants and other commercial units were situated.

Ranbir Kapur as Raj

He first met a young girl Gulabji (played by Rani Mukherjee) who worked fulltime in that brothel. Gulabji was a good human being and, in spite of her belonging to a socially discriminated community, she accepted Raj as her humanitarian friend and helped him out in finding a place for him to live. Raj meets a beautiful teenaged girl Sakina (played by Sonam Kapoor) and developed an instinctive romantic relationship at the first sight. Sakina was already committed to another romantic relationship with a stranger (played by Salman Khan), who met her for a short while and then separated for an uncertain prolonged period.

Sakina missed the stranger all the time for months together and kept waiting for him endlessly. Consecutively, raj and Sakina develop a strong bond of friendship respecting mutual feelings. The story eventually finds a negative end when the stranger returns back to Sakina and Skina reunites with him and sets off on their eternal journey. She leaves behind her friend Raj who bids her farewell with heavy heart and face masked with a superficial smile.

Review of the movie: The big budget, big canvas and much awaited film ‘Saawariya’ was released on November 9, 2007 with lot of fanfare but it did not do well on the box office. Sanjay Leela Bhansali produced this film under his own banner SLB Films and performed responsibilities of all the vital departments like direction, editing, screen play and music direction. That is the reason why the movie had become abstract and monotonous. I would enlist all the good features of the film and the vital points responsible for its debacle:

The plus points:

Sanjay Leela Bhansali has provided an excellent and highly professional direction and editing to this film.

The movie has exceptionally beautiful and professionally excellent sets, designed by Vanita and Omung Kumar that keep the cine-viewer spellbound all through the show.

Cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran has used his camera effectively and rendered the best possible visual effects on the screen that take the viewer to the dream world imagined by Sanjay Leela Bhansali

In spite of being debutant, Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam have played the lead characters in the best possible expertize. All other actors have also done justice to their characters in the film.

Reza Sheraffi has designed excellent costumes for all the characters.

The negative points:

The film has a very week and abstract screen play. That is the reason why the movie does not appear to be moving in justified successive frames.

The film has been made based on a short story. As such for making a film the screenplay should have been written in such a way that the short story canvas converts into a full length movie canvas.

There is monotony all through the film and it seems as if the film is trying to tell the story in one breath.

There was no suitable place for the towel dance and song sequence and it was deliberately inserted in the film in an arbitrary way. The towel dance and song sequence should not be there.

There were so many songs shown in quick succession in the film and should have been reduced to the barest minimum. This theme is not suitable for so many songs.

It appears as if the story of the film has covered a time period of a few weeks or at the most few months rather than screening a major segment of human life.

There was darkness of night shown throughout the film and eventually dragged the viewer away from the mode of entertainment to an uncomfortable gloom.

The entire film started on the sets created by the film crew progressed in the interiors and ended indoors only. The film never went outdoors or showed any external locations. This limited accessibility created an avoidable suffocation throughout the movie.

The social and geographical identity of the place and the people in this film could not be shown distinctly on the screen. The social backgrounds of the people were highly confusing. The costumes of the characters and the snowfall shown on the screen showed Russian theme of the story blended with Indian identities.

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